Working as a freelancer

I've been freelancing for a little over 7 years now - I've never had a full-time programming job. For the first few years, I had other various part-time jobs (cafes, delivery, things like that), but after a while I got some traction and was able to turn it into a "career".

Since then, I have been fortunate enough to have all of my work come as referrals from clients and friends.

Some benefits have been:

• I have been able to learn a lot in terms of programming. With each project, I try to incorporate something new - so everything gets to be a learning experience. I have found that this is a big motivator for me, and is probably what has driven me the most.
• I can (at this point) be a little picky about who I work with. I'm currently looking for full-time work, but I have the privilege of being able to say no to companies or positions I'm not excited about.

Some pitfalls, in my experience, have been:

• Learning how to work with others - both clients and collaborators - has been just as much (if not more) of a learning curve as learning how to code. It's all about trust, open communication about what all parties need and want, and setting very clear goals and expectations. In other words, you also need to be a skilled project manager.
• As a solo developer, there's a ceiling on the type of work you can do, unless you're getting contract positions on teams. My work has grown from building "websites" to "web apps" and MVPs - and I'm finding that, with these larger projects, I'm playing Product Manager much more than I am developer. A lot of the times, clients don't really know what they want (when it comes to specifics). If they're new to this kind of work, their inclination is to hire a developer - those are the people that build these things, right? - while they probably need a product manager & designer.
• It's also difficult to get experience working with teams, which is a big gap when looking for full-time work.
• Working from home is isolating.
• Money stuff can be stressful AF. Debt, clients paying late or not at all, setting aside money for taxes, not having income at regular intervals - this is all very difficult, and if you want to thrive, getting organized about this is key (and a good amount of work).

Some things that are both a benefit and a pitfall:

• You can work from anywhere!
• You can easily end up working from everywhere. (Schedule serious breaks ahead of time, and commit to not working during these breaks)
• You are your own boss!
• You have to be your own boss. (Remember to be a good one)

Some tips:

• When setting your rates, remember that:
  1. you are going to be paying additional taxes as a freelancer
  2. Your client is not paying any of your taxes, insurance, and so on. They're hiring a contractor because they don't want the overhead and risk of having someone on payroll. This overhead and the risk is all on your shoulders. Set your rates accordingly.
• Do not allow clients to contact you by text/phone, unless it's a real emergency. Set working hours and serious boundaries.

I've been thinking about writing a series of blog posts on a lot of the above... this thread is a good nudge for me - thank you for starting it!

My typical advice is to do everything you can to avoid the big online freelancer platforms. In my experience, many (not all) of the clients on those sites want a ton of work for little pay, and don't understand when you say things may take longer than they expect.

Instead, the most important thing you can do is "become a visible expert in your space". That could be a blog, ebook, conference talks, etc - but have something that you can point to online when clients ask what you've done before.

For me, that was writing an ebook about React. It took about 2 months of concentrated effort, but after that, it was like a cheat code for getting new clients. I could reach out to businesses that I knew were using React, and when they ask what I'd done before, I'd show them the book. After that, conversations became very easy. "Oh! you wrote a book on React... you must know what you're talking about" was the common sentiment.

It takes time, for sure, but it's possible! Good luck everyone :)

Been working on Upwork since 2010 when it was Odesk. I average about 4 gigs per week mainly doing Web scrapping, NLP/Sentiment analysis, Data Analysis, API Design and Web development using Flask and Django. I get clients mainly through referrals and have a few long term clients with regular repeat jobs. Despite the negative press it receives Upwork is a good platform if you play by the rules, identify high paying categories and provide good work. I average about $6K per month which is not bad considering i'm from a third world country. The platform however has some pain points like recent changes that seem to make it hard to create a new account and get approved especially in categories that already have a lot of freelancers.

The hardest part is self-discipline. You have to control yourself. I've been a procrastinator my whole life. I always wait for the last minute to start freaking out (yes, I freak out before I actually do my job lol).

Things have been changing once I try to digitize my work. Before I only use notepads and phone reminder. But lately I've been introduced to some of the productivity apps and the result is wonderful.

I onboard my client on a project management software called Quire. I don't have to use emails to update them with every change. They can just log in and see the progress.

Being a freelance has its up and down, but to me, it's one of the most rewarding job :)

I'm a WordPress developer now full-time with RocketGenius (parent company of the form plugin Gravity Forms). When I was freelancing (been there for over a decade), Codeable was a game changer for me.

When I joined in 2017, the proposed hourly rate on Codeable is $60-$100 and now it's $70-$120 (codeable.io/pricing/). It takes several phases to join Codeable - application, test project, interview, and live coding. Once you passed all of them you'll start a trial for 45 days (you get paid 100% in the trial even you didn't pass it), and then you get a certificate and can stay there ever since (I'm still there just don't take new clients).

In my opinion, it's the best platform if you are in the WordPress freelancing market. Nowadays WP is very common so there're plenty freelancers work for low hourly rates or bidding with low prices, but if you're very good at WordPress, you can find high paying clients on Codeable and $5-6k per month is very common among our best experts (members on Codeable are called experts). And the most successful ones are reportedly securing > $10k per month (e.g. nathanello.com/freelance/two-years...).

I have been working as a part-time freelancer on Freelancer.com since 2015.
So far, I have managed to complete 80+ projects, with 5-star rating, positive feedback and got a good number of repeating clients.
It's a pretty good experience and I've been thinking to move to full-time freelancing but I am too afraid to leave a full-time job and move to full-time freelancing.

I literally had 0 luck in the past trying to find coding work as a freelancer, it was terrible. I've been freelance writing for a while now, and that's been pretty good. I haven't been using any platform other than simply posting my work and either reaching out or getting reached out directly.

I worked a lot for toptal in the past and the experience was amazing. You'll have great clients to work with and your network can grow quickly.

There are a lot of other companies like toptal: gigster, scalablepath, xteam, etc.. They all have a screening process and you usually can start the screening process anytime you like.

If you are looking for freelance jobs, taking a look at these is definitely worth it.

I'm working as a freelancer since end of 2011.
The first (I think) three years I worked from a coworking space every day. That was how I got all of my jobs and still get them (except for two: one was for an agency a friend of mine worked for, the other one was for someone who found me via google) - and I have always been fully booked since the beginning.

Online platforms might be helpful for some people, but I prefer to work for people I know directly or at least through a friend. That way chances that everything works smoothly are much higher in my opinion.
But I know that I have always been very lucky with my situation and that this definitely might not work for everyone.

I am on Fiverr, got a gig a few weeks ago and the client was so impressed he gave me a 2-month contract to work on their codebase that meant I had to create an Upwork account as his company uses it.

Mostly Python-related tasks.

Not sure if it's OK to promote your gigs here but here goes nothing: fiverr.com/s2/8ffb9f099b